A Step Toward Morning
by Confiscated Retina
Summary: Ten years after graduation, Cartman is dead, Stan's in prison, and no one has thought to help Kyle pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Kenny plans to leave town for good when he gets an unexpected call. Hinted Style, Kyman, maybe K2 if you want to see it.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I had this up in a different version for awhile. I've fixed it up a bit and I'm reposting it because I like it. Loosely inspired by another fic, an AU off that other AU, if you will.

* * *

**A Step Toward Morning**

Every light in the small house is on, squares of gold on the white-blanketed lawn distorted by a passing shadow. The blinds are up, curtains pulled back, but the encroaching dusk still presses against Kyle Broflovski. In the milky light of a winter day he had felt confident that he would be alright alone in the house and had reassured everyone who asked of it. But as the sky begins to darken an anxious restlessness comes over him.

He paces the rooms frantically, wide green eyes watching as the sky shifts from dull white to a deeper gray. He keeps reminding himself that Cartman is dead, that nobody is going to come through that locked door and there is nothing in this house to make him think of his former prison. The windows are as unobstructed as he can make them but he flinches at every small noise in the house and sound of a passing car. Rubbing his scarred wrists, he feels the weight of Cartman's ghost on his shoulders.

If Stan could be here, he knew the night wouldn't be so bad. But Stan is in prison and won't be back for a long time. Deserving though Cartman may have been, murder is still murder.

Pacing, Kyle tries to slow his breathing and stem the onrushing panic. This is the first night in a week he's been alone, the first night in ten long years. Kyle thought he might have welcomed it, but instead he wishes fervently that he was almost anywhere else, even back in the holding cell at the station.

His eyes fall to the cell phone sitting on the kitchen counter. It was Stan's. Kyle picks it up and calls the only name in the contacts list he knows.

* * *

Leaving is never as easy as just walking away. Kenny McCormick, no longer a detective as of six hours ago, sits on his couch and tries to think of all the loose ends he needs to tie up before exiting South Park. At present, he can't even think about where to go from here. He gives up trying to sort it all out for the time being and simply stares at the blank tv screen while night settles around him.

The phone in the kitchen rings, startling a profanity out of him. He stumbles toward it in the dark.

"McCormick residence," he sounds tired even to himself.

"Kenny?"

He blinks. "...Kyle?"

He's been expecting a lot of calls; this isn't one of them. He betrayed Kyle, treated him like a criminal, even thought of him as a murderer until the evidence finally threw the truth in his face. Kenny had been certain he would never speak to Kyle again after all he's done to the poor man in the name of justice.

"Yeah, it's me," the gruff voice on the other end sounds strained.

"Look, Kyle, about all this mess..."

"It's okay. You were just doing your job. I...I understand."

"I don't know if I can ever really make it up to you, but if there's anything I can do..."

"There is," Kyle's words are rushed, as if he's trying to get them out before he can stop himself.

The rest of the conversation is brief and more than a little awkward on both ends. Still, when the phone is back in its cradle, Kenny feels a very faint smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. He drags his coat on and picks up his car keys. With a sigh, he looks back at the dark apartment before shutting the door.

"Fuck," he mutters.

Leaving isn't so hard if you aren't going anywhere.

* * *

Kyle waits in the passenger seat with the heater on while Kenny turns all the lights off in his house and locks the door. They don't say anything on the drive back to his apartment. It's early according to the clock but a weariness born of exhaustion and the thickness of a Colorado winter night weighs them both down.

"It's not much," Kenny says as he opens the door, "but my place is your place as long as you need it. Help yourself to anything in the fridge."

"Thanks," Kyle says, setting his duffel bag by his shoes near the door.

"Do you want my bed or the couch?"

The other man flinches and Kenny mentally kicks himself.

"Uh, couch."

"Sure," he hurries into his room to dig out the spare blankets. "I think these were Stan's."

A faint smile crosses Kyle's face as he takes them.

"Well..." Kenny rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "It's been a hell of a day. I'm turning in. If you want the tv on, the remote's on the coffee table. It's not going to bother me."

"You always did sleep like a rock."

A memory of Kyle stepping on a mostly comatose Kenny at a sleep over two lifetimes ago crosses both of their minds. Both men smile.

"Wake me up if you need anything."

"Sure. Goodnight, Kenny."

"Night, Kyle."

* * *

Sometime near midnight, Kenny quietly wanders into the kitchen. The tv is on, volume low, its blue-tinted glow on Kyle's pale face. He looks small and broken, back jammed firmly against the couch cushions and puffy circles under his eyes from tears. But he is sleeping soundly, something Kenny is sure Kyle hasn't done for years. It isn't much, but even a small step forward is still progress in the right direction.

Kenny makes a mental note to talk to Kyle in the morning and quietly sets a box of tissue on the coffee table before wandering back to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** The first part just felt like it needed a little more, so here it is. I do the notebook thing myself and it does help. :)

* * *

**A Step Toward Morning 2**

A gloomy dawn two days later sees Kenny staggering out of bed. His mind wants to stay there but his body is bound by old habits. Groggy, he shuffles toward the kitchen and is completely caught off guard by Kyle standing in front of the sink.

"Oh, shit," he croaks, dragging a hand over a stubbled cheek. "Sorry about the mess in there, man. The past few days have just been... Kyle?"

There's a subtle tension in Kyle's shoulders and Kenny sees scarred hands gripping the counter top so tightly the knuckles are white. The other man takes a deep, shaky breath.

"He...he always insisted on a clean house," the words are soft and strained. "Spotless."

Kenny wonders what Kyle is seeing in his mind's eye now. Is it the pristine, windowless house that was his prison? Or is it those same walls smeared with blood?

"He can't hurt you now," Kenny says.

"I know. But ten years is a long time."

"Yeah. Look, I'll take care of those dishes as soon as ..."

"Actually," there's almost a shy quality to Kyle's words, "could you leave them? It's...kind of nice."

Kenny smiles. "Sure. Less work for me."

When Kenny does do the dishes later that day he makes sure to leave a cup and a dirty spoon in the sink, just in case.

* * *

That night Kyle is inattentively channel surfing from the couch while Kenny fills out a third job application in the kitchen. The tv's drone and the application's tedium make his eyelids heavy.

"Hey, Kenny?" he twitches into more wakefulness at the sudden sound of Kyle's voice.

"Huh?"

"You were a cop..."

"Detective."

"Detective, yeah. I bet you saw a lot of horrible shit, right?"

A chill creeps down Kenny's spine, his shoulders tensing. "Yeah."

He can hear Kyle fiddling with the remote. "How did you cope?"

Kenny blinks and sits up, pushing the application away and setting his pen down. He shifts in his chair to look at the couch. Kyle is looking at the remote in his hands, absently turning and flipping it around without really seeing it.

"Well," he sighs. "We had some older guys in the station, kind of veterans. If you were having a tough time, they'd listen. It helped, knowing it wasn't just me."

Kyle nods.

"There was a counselor on staff, too," he pauses before reluctantly adding, "Stan talked with him a lot. He's a good guy, knows his stuff."

The silence between them is broken only by the tv's quiet murmur. Kenny shifts in his chair, looking anywhere but at the man on his couch. Kyle's first official therapy session is in two weeks but it feels like an eternity stretching before them both.

"Uh, there's one more thing," Kenny rises from his seat and Kyle's eyes follow him into the dark bedroom.

He comes back with a cheap notebook in one hand, it's blue cover scratched and rumpled, a pen tucked in the spiral binding. Kenny plops onto the couch and lets the notebook rest in his lap. Kyle looks at it with one eyebrow raised.

"I don't know if anyone else does this," Kenny says without meeting the other man's gaze. "When things are really tough and I can't sleep, I write all the bad stuff down."

"Does it help?"

"Yeah. If it's on paper, it doesn't rot my brain so much."

"So...where are the other notebooks? I mean, you've been a co...detective for years, right?"

Kenny grins. He walks into the kitchen, notebook still in hand, and lifts an old coffee can down from the top of one cupboard. The notebook comes to rest on top of the unfinished job application and Kenny sits back down. Kyle watches as the can lid, streaked with tally marks in permanent marker, opens to reveal fine gray ashes.

"When one book gets filled up, it goes in here."

"Huh."

"You want to try it out? I always keep spare notebooks around. I...kind of blow through them when things are rough."

Kyle looks thoughtful.

"Hide the one you write in somewhere if it'll make you feel safer. I'm not going to read it, dude. That's the cardinal rule of the notebook: nobody reads what's in there, not even you."

Ten minutes later the tv's noise is undercut by the sound of pens scratching, one at the kitchen table and the other on the couch. When Kenny wanders toward his own bed, Kyle is still furiously writing, shoulders hunched and tense.

* * *

Three and a half weeks later they stand by a circle of stones near Stark's Pond in the predawn light. Kenny offered to stay in the car, but Kyle asked him to come. He watches the other man carefully arrange pine needles around a green notebook. Kyle's breath plumes over his red hair, mingling with a small wisp of smoke. He stands and they both watch the flames curl around blackening pages under a sky turning gold at its edges.

The mountain tops are orange tipped with the rising sun's light as Kyle stoops again to scoop ashes into a big glass jar that had been holding pennies until recently. He wipes his soot-stained fingers on his coat as he stands. Kenny grins at the consciously made streaks and Kyle smiles shyly back.

"So... You want breakfast or something?" Kenny says with a light shrug. "The coffee shop is open by now. My treat."

"Sure."

They walk to the car with the first rays of morning sun warming their backs.

**Beginning.**


End file.
